It's 24 degrees outside — are we going in this place to warm up? Maybe, since 28 degrees is named after what someone thinks is the ideal temperature for a martini. I cannot find the original reference or who figured out this precise figure Fahrenheit ("minus-2.22 Centigrade" would not make it as a restaurant name), but with so much bare alcohol, the drink has to be cold — hence James Bond's direction to shake, not stir, making the martini colder.

Always interested in truth in advertising, this writer brought along a couple of immersion thermometers, and sure enough, a "28-degree organic martini" ($10.50) was served at 28 degrees. Now this is a vodka drink (with Square One organic vodka), as are all four martinis on the menu. I tend to think of a martini as being about the resinous flavors of dry gin and lemon peel or olive. This vodka drink tasted like a high-quality sake, which is to say, like pure alcohol. It was certainly dry, and this column has opposed over-sweetened cocktails for a long time (although 19th-century martini precursors were made with sweet gin and sometimes sweet vermouth).

So that's the bar anecdote, and this handsome lounge/restaurant has been living more on its drinks than its food, but that turns out to be wrong. A fine young chef, William Kovel, snatched from the embers of the lamented Aujourd'hui, is consulting here, and his notions are executed by one Jonathan Sargent, who used to work at OM in Harvard Square, as good a small-plates lounge as there is. A foodie might go past something like their caramelized onion and asiago pizza ($12) where a group out for drinks would discover something sweet and savory in every bite of this well-made thin-cruster.

I'm not so happy about buying bread ($5), even if it is long diagonal slices of grilled baguette with a good olive tapenade and a decent white-bean spread. But I'm okay with Peruvian ceviche ($7), even as a small mound of seafood and rocotto peppers (the perfect slight bite), in a big plate of ice. Let's see . . . there's some squid, octopus, cooked shrimp — it's all terrific. Corn nuts are Peruvian, not usually part of their ceviche, but fun. And "crispy calamari" ($15) although ungrammatical and overpriced, is truly crisp at the table, with fried peppers, and fresh winter arugula chopped in between. A solid variation. Another cliché, beet salad ($9), has addictive candied walnuts added for a twist, along with tasty blue cheese, and the usual three colors of beets: red, golden, and that smudgy gray that happens to the beautiful striped chioggia beets when you boil them.

There are only five main courses, and we had four of them. The locavore pick was probably seared local scallops ($23), five terrific sea scallops, possibly too salty, over pureed winter vegetables and one of the nicer versions of the now-ubiquitous Brussels sprouts and bacon. For the carnivores, braised short ribs ($28) were served off the bone on a long plate, two piles each of shredded beefy meat on shredded root vegetables, over a potato puree, and topped with micro-green herbs. Every bite was splendid. Vegevores could have the wild mushroom risotto ($17), a good balance of creamy, cheesy, al dente, and toothsome oyster mushrooms and shitake, laced with truffle oil. Then there's salmon ($24), here allegedly "slow roasted," and certainly sitting on an over-salted mélange of vegetables including parsnips, carrots, waxy potatoes, and green beans.

The Spot Café Your typical cheap-eats reviewer spends a lot of time in diners: they're America's original inexpensive quick-service restaurants, and most are a step up from modern fast-food franchises.

Dan’s Place We didn't notice any grizzlies or cougars as road kill on our trek to Dan's Place, though we kept our eyes peeled there in the wilds of West Greenwich.

The Daily Grill You can tell that the Daily Grill isn't from around here, because it describes itself as "modeled after the great big city grills of the '30s and '40s."

Gourmet kitchen The gourmet recreation of classic deli cuisine, recently identified as a movement in the national media, has made an ambiguous appearance here in Portland in the form of Nosh Kitchen Bar.

Parish Cafe and Bar The edge of gentrification can present some close-minded folks with a barrier to finding good cheap eats.

The Regal Beagle The Regal Beagle is making a quick success doing what almost all the new restaurants want to do: small plates; comfort food with a gourmet twist; a mixture of high and low; a bit of locovore, green, and slow fare; some salty fast food; interesting drinks; and scrambled nostalgia.

The Village Haven We were headed to a concert in Cumberland and we thought we'd make a slight detour to North Smithfield — the village of Forestdale, to be precise.

Barlow’s Restaurant It’s not unusual for this column to have a different opinion of restaurants than the column in the Boston Globe — I favor a flatter bell curve.

South End Buttery South End Buttery started with cupcakes and coffee, but opened up a dining room below street level two summers ago, and has since gradually taken on more serious cheffery.

Review: Thornton's Grille Restaurants are notoriously difficult businesses to start up, with survival rates not unlike those of small countries with larger, hostile neighbors. But some people know how to put them together so they'll stick around awhile.

Lee's Place Burgers Americans eat more than a billion hamburgers each year, most of them at fast-food restaurants. That's a lot of bad, sad burgers.

REVIEW: BONCHON | August 10, 2012 What am I doing in this basement in Harvard Square, reviewing the second location of a multi-national franchise chain?

REVIEW: CARMELINA'S | July 25, 2012 After a good run with "Italian tapas" under the name Damiano (a play on the given name of chef-owner Damien "Domenic" DiPaola), this space has been rechristened as Carmelina's — after the chef's mother and his first restaurant, opened when he was an undergraduate in Western Mass — and the menu reconfigured to feature more entrées.

REVIEW: TONIC | July 06, 2012 Bad restaurant idea number 16: let's do a neighborhood bar-bistro where there already is one.

REVIEW: HAPPY’S BAR AND KITCHEN | June 20, 2012 In a year of bad restaurant ideas, one of the better bets is to have a successful fancy-food chef try a downscale restaurant.